


Double Edged Truths: Sayaka's and Kyouko's Love Arrives

by TaraSamadhi



Series: Love and Adventure in the Homura-verse [3]
Category: Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika | Puella Magi Madoka Magica
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Past Lives, Constructed Reality, Drama & Romance, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Romance, F/F, Falling In Love, Friends to Lovers, Girls Kissing, Life Partners, Memory Related, Non-Explicit Sex, One True Pairing, Personal Growth, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Separation Anxiety, True Love, Yuri
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-12
Updated: 2019-06-12
Packaged: 2020-05-01 20:45:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19185238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TaraSamadhi/pseuds/TaraSamadhi
Summary: This story fits snugly between "Homura and the Disappearing Ladder" and "Doors Open Outward".It can also be seen as a resolution of the stories "Five Minutes: Kyouko Leaves Sayaka's Body Behind" and "Loving Kyouko" in the other series, *What Sayaka Left Behind*.Now in high school in the Homura-verse, unaware of what is happening in a larger sense but increasingly aware of the strangeness of their world, Sayaka and Kyouko build and fulfill their long-deferred love, helping each other heal wounds almost totally forgotten.A gentle one.





	Double Edged Truths: Sayaka's and Kyouko's Love Arrives

It was too true to be real.

Sayaka walked to school with Kyouko after badgering her to get there on time, as she did morning after morning. 

Every morning it was the same. Kyouko would stay up late playing games on her little handheld console, or escape to the arcade to do some kind of dance or music machine before sneaking into the front door or climbing into the bedroom window if it was too late, knowing that Sayaka would be annoyed. The next morning, she would fight getting out of bed until Sayaka started tickling her under the arms with cruel effectiveness. 

Then, Kyouko was maddeningly cheerful and energetic on the path to school. Sayaka, exhausted from the morning routine, walked along winded.

She’s like a cat, Sayaka thought, happily assessing her friend. You can’t tell her what to do, she’ll only do what she wants to do, she’ll hide or show herself when she wants to, she’ll give affection on her own terms or just stare at you when she doesn’t want to, she’ll run and bounce around and jump up on things at the slightest opportunity. 

She even looks like a cat, Sayaka pondered. A cat with fiery red hair. The little snaggletooth that normally would make Sayaka think of dentists made Kyouko look like a kitten always on the verge of calling for food. 

Kind of a smelly cat, too, Sayaka grinned. Telling Kyouko that was a sure way to get chased down the street with threats yelled at you the whole way. What was going to happen when every movement is the Olympics? Showers of sweat, that’s what. Sayaka actually liked the way Kyouko smelled, but it was nice to have something to annoy her with on every occasion.

When they got to school Kyouko charged forward for no reason whatsoever, waving at Sayaka to follow. She did, of course. Kyouko was huge entertainment value and there was no excuse for missing the show.

The first year of high school was turning out to be okay. Actually, Sayaka couldn’t see a difference except that adults hassled you a little less frequently. The last two years of middle school had passed happily, boringly, a little too much so. Kyouko shared her room and they gave each other grief every minute of the day into the night. School and friends were okay. 

Madoka especially was growing into her own since she had befriended Akemi Homura, that strange beautiful dark-haired girl whose dislike for Sayaka was palpable. What’s her problem? Sayaka often wondered. But Madoka loved Homura and was becoming less childish and more sensible every day in her company, so it really didn’t matter whether or not Homura liked Sayaka.

Now if Homura didn’t like Kyouko, that would be another story. No matter how freaking strong and fast Kyouko was, Sayaka always had a feral instinct to protect her. It was odd, but true.

Kyouko could get a job carrying loads of bricks and do it cheerfully, and she could probably wrestle a bear to the ground for the fun of it, but if anyone gave her any kind of problem Sayaka was right in there ready to rumble with the offender. These things don’t make sense, Sayaka thought, but she’s my friend and I love her. Anyone who gives her a hard time will answer to me.

Kyouko waved a hello to the Student Council greeter by the door and slammed into the building, leaving bewilderment in her wake. Shizuki Hitomi, first year class representative, shook her head as Sayaka approached.

“Does she ever slow down?” she asked.

Sayaka shrugged as she went into the building and answered, “No, it’s more like she wears out and collapses in a heap.”

Kyouko was already gone, presumably to their classroom. Two lines of dazed people were clustered along the rails where she had cut a path through them.

Sayaka heard a familiar pink voice behind her. “Sayaka-chan! Sayaka-chan!”

Sayaka turned smiling to Madoka, who grinned at her and gave her a signature hug. Madoka had not basically changed. She was still her loving, slightly dumb self, welcome everywhere because who on Earth could possibly turn her away? Madoka’s childlike prettiness was visibly refining into something more like what she would look like as a woman, with clean gentle cheekbone lines and wise eyes. I wonder how I’m changing, Sayaka thought. Kyouko would look at her a lot but not say anything. I think I’m prettier, Sayaka thought. “I think I’m prettier.”

“Silly Sayaka-chan,” Madoka said. “You can’t get any prettier. You’re beautiful. You’re getting a great body, too! Boobs and everything!”

Sayaka felt the blush burn through my face in several places. “Madoka!”

“Ha ha ha,” Madoka laughed, and ran off to her home room and her day with Homura.

Sayaka slowly walked to the classroom, giving herself some time to think. Life was way too good, really. Some of it she didn’t understand, and she was beginning to wonder whether there were literally something wrong with her brain. Because, for instance, she could not remember why Kyouko was at her house. She was always happy it was true, but Sayaka did not know why or how Kyouko got there, and just as frighteningly did not understand when her parents left on a years-long business trip and left a lot of money for her in the bank. It all led to the fact of this crazy red-haired girl who looked like a cat who would bounce on Sayaka’s bed until her annoyed friend chased her off.

There were other things that made Sayaka wonder about herself. Homura, for instance, really disliked her, but they had spoken maybe four times and Sayaka had never taken Madoka away from her for any length of time. Then there was Hitomi and Kyousuke, who when they were together would pass by looking very uncomfortable and a little sad for no apparent reason. For no apparent reason, when they did, Sayaka felt relieved. 

Overall, she had a general feeling of things being tilted on their side and spilling things out in a mixed mess on the floor. Questions and unsatisfactory answers sometimes felt as though they split the world in two, on two sliding planes, and made her see everything in double image.

Yes, she thought, things were too true to be real.

And how was this day any different from the one that came after?

*

Kyouko started acting strange a few months into the first year of high school. Sayaka would wake to Kyouko crying in her sleep on the other side of the bed, calling out Sayaka's name in fear and sorrow. This was disturbing from the outset, but Sayaka would simply wake Kyouko up, tell her it was okay, and hold her for a few seconds until her friend fell asleep.

Even at school, these things happened. Kyouko would grab Sayaka by the arm, eyes full of tears, and tell her to wait. Then she’d simply stand there clutching her, eyes closed, until it was time to keep walking.

This kind of thing became more and more intense, and Sayaka became deeply worried about Kyouko. Some nights, when Kyouko normally would take off and play, she would sit near Sayaka without getting too close but close enough to radiate a desperate need for comfort. Rather than draw away, Sayaka would scoot closer to her, and they would resume doing whatever they were doing, arms touching. Late at night, Sayaka would wake sometimes to Kyouko crying as she held her and begged her not to go. 

Kyouko didn’t know what she had been doing, on waking, but she stuck closer and closer. When Sayaka finally told her what was happening and asked her why, assuring her that she didn’t mind the drawing-close, Kyouko shook her head and said she really did not know, it was just like she had lost Sayaka many times, and each night made her remember a different one.

Things started to get really strange, and more than a little scary. Sayaka and Kyouko started wanting each other like lovers. Neither had experienced anything like that; it was like a car coming at them when they couldn’t move, and they wanted the car to hit them. It was as though wherever they were, a steel coil would wind around them both and whirl them together, unable to move. It was like hunger except for a nausea that made it hard to eat, like happiness filled with ecstatic distress.

Sayaka simply didn’t know what it was. A few friends like Hitomi did, or at least thought about it a little too much, but Sayaka couldn’t tie together anything they said with what she was feeling. All she knew was that Kyouko and she were drawing together, and it was pushing everything else aside.

Finally, as though surfacing after a long underwater swim through a very deep pool, she found herself in the bath face to face with Kyouko, legs touching, Kyouko’s mouth open and face flushed and beautiful strong body bare to her view. Sayaka was shuddering and trembling, tears in her eyes blurring everything.

Kyouko gently reached forward, put her palms under Sayaka’s arms, and pulled her forward.

“Is this okay?” Sayaka asked. “Is this wrong? We’re girls. And we’re really young. Who loves this young?”

“I don’t know, “ Kyouko said. “It just feels like we have no choice, like we have to do it. Come on.”

Sayaka leaned forward.

“Come on.”

Sayaka leaned forward into Kyouko’s kiss, lips pressing into hers and their breath mingling from both of their mouths. Sayaka put her hands on Kyouko’s cheeks and pulled her face closer.

*

They learned a lot more things, of course, being lovers with no one around to tell them not to do it. They always went straight home every afternoon to love until morning. Madoka would always emphatically ask "what they were doing", Hitomi would give them suspicious looks tinged with jealousy, and Homura would study them curiously. 

One day they were walking through the trees in the center of campus when they went insane. Kyouko grabbed Sayaka and pushed her against a tree. Sayaka grabbed Kyouko’s hair and shook. Kyouko told Sayaka to be still and Sayaka wrestled with her. Then, somewhere along the line, they began kissing so deeply and feverishly that they could have been expelled without blaming whoever did it, hands gripping each other’s breasts.

No one came. At the same time, Sayaka felt someone watching.

Up through a break in the trees, she saw Homura staring down at Kyouko and her from the second floor, out of her classroom. The look on her face could not be forgotten. Sorrow, curiosity, envy. Envy. Profound envy at what they were doing.

Huh, Sayaka thought. I’d be envious too. Take that, you hair-flipping mean-eyed witch.

That night, things got grim and stayed that way for over a week. Kyouko and Sayaka would have dreams that were basically emotional storms of terror and sadness, and they would wake up hugging each other so hard that their bones felt broken. Sayaka and Kyouko spent large parts of the night crying and saying each others’ names.

Both started fighting off the urge to call out for each other from different parts of the house and try to find each other at school when separate.

They would find themselves in dazed states trying to find something neither one could name when someone asked it what it was, then wonder where each other were.

Their dependence became so intense that they would schedule breaks from each other and stay away from their phones, fighting dread and bouts of terror so intense that they buckled over clutching their guts.

Every night, they would make love as though they were clinging to the last shred of hope in a world without it.

In other words, the joy of being lovers turned into something else, very fast. Sayaka and Kyouko were together for keeps, but something had to give. This lasted for more than a few days and nights, but both of them held on. They had found each other after endless turns of the wheel wracked with sorrow and loss, and there was no way they were letting go.

Then, out of nowhere and for no good reason they could see at the time, the fever broke. It broke, and after it broke, both Kyouko and Sayaka noticed a sudden burst of happiness in Madoka and Homura. Kyouko and Sayaka had managed to make it through an entire night asleep, without shaking from fear. That in itself was exhausting. They were heading up the road toward school when they saw Madoka and Homura smiling and pausing to laugh with each other before heading toward the school.

Sayaka looked at Kyouko and Kyouko looked right back. 

“Why are those bitches happy?” Kyouko asked.

Sayaka laughed. “So you can sense it too?”

“Sense it? ‘Sense’ that those two are happy after we’ve been going through hell? I’m going to go tear their hair out with my teeth.”

Kyouko was back. Sayaka began laughing, holding her stomach, and Kyouko grinned, gratified that her comment had brought on some laughter. Then she began to laugh.

They needed to laugh so much that they were literally weeping when they got to the school. Sakaka collapsed in the courtyard begging for mercy, as the laughs were now painful and her eyes had gone dry. Kyouko was okay, grinning.

“I think those two hurt me,” Sayaka muttered. “And I’ll never know why.”

Kyouko suddenly looked serious and gazed at the two people being discussed, where they stood laughing a good distance away.

“It’s funny that we know it’s true,” she said. “I mean, it’s not like we think it’s true, we know it’s true.”

“Yeah,” Sayaka said, collecting herself and getting up before one of the adults intervened.

“We need to ask them,” Kyouko said. 

“Madoka at least,” Sayaka agreed. “God knows what Homura would say. I don’t think she’d be friendly. She might answer you but I think she’d probably tell me I deserved every ounce of suffering I got.”

Kyouko shook her head. “No, Madoka it will be.”

Sayaka looked around. It was definitely a double-image world as she thought before, no doubt about it, planes of reality shifting past and against each other, details not quite synchronized and blurring in transit.

But it was the world where she and Kyouko were creating a world together. It would do.


End file.
